I recently stumbled across an article called "The Secret Life of Mother Teresa.". The story, in Time magazine of September 2007, based on letters between Teresa and her superiors tells of this beloved holy woman's 50-year crisis of faith. She revealed that for half a century she felt painfully distant and separated from God to the point of even doubting his existence. It is a startling contradiction that one of the great Christian icons of the past 100 years could feel so spiritually empty and totally isolated from the God she pointed countless others to. At one point she cried out to God: "If this be the way you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few of them."
To some, this makes her more of a saint because even in the midst of such pain and spiritual darkness she kept on faithfully doing the work of the Lord, while for many others her story proves that Christianity is a load of horse manure and that thinking about God is a waste of time.
If God is supposed to be so personal and loving, why didn't he make himself more known to one of his most devoted servants? If the most saintly person of our time can't connect with God, what does that mean for the rest of us? ? Is it even possible to know God or is He distant, abstract, and altogether unknowable?
I don't want to play judge on Mother T, but I think God was equally as devastated if not more so at their non-relationship. The point is that its not how He treats His friends at all, but it seems that in the midst of her fervent religious effort she sadly missed the friendship with God that is graciously and repeatedly offered each of us.
Relationship with God is not a formula. Religion sets us up for failure in this area because it says if you do this and this for long enough, then God must do this and this for you. It just doesn't work like that. His love, His presence, his nearness has nothing to do with performance. Even 60 years of your life given to helping the poor clearly still isn't enough to earn a place close to God.
The bottom line is that each one of us can know God, and as spiritual beings it is the only thing that will ever really satisfy us, yet no amount of religious activity or work can make God come near. Instead, when we abandon ourselves to God in a place of honesty and openness, desiring only to know Him and recognizing that even our best effort is never going to earn us any credit – in those moments it allows the God of love to become very real to us and it is the platform from which a real relationship is built.
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Wow, Jaemin - so very well said!
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Mother Theresa ever found the friendship she was looking for... I hope so! I believe God is passionately interested in the plight of the poor, and the efforts of anyone, to help them, do not go unnoticed - but you are right, when you say that even this cannot 'earn' the friendship of God - how freeing it is, to know that my acceptance is not based on my performance.
It occurs to me, writing this, that only such absolute 'no strings' love and acceptance allows us to *freely* give in return - & God has only every wanted from us what we give to Him of our own free will.
Ciao!
Kerry
Well Christianity isnt all horse manure there is some truth in it.
ReplyDeleteI think however protestants especially those with a touch of evangelical and a charismatic flavour, try very hard to convince themselves that they have some personal relationship with God. They convince themselves but i feel they really only end up having a relationship with another part of themselves. It's acosy friendship if your god is another part of your mind.
I dont beleive in a cosmic santa claus in the sky that i can be friends with and who grants my wishes.
i posted a comment on another blog post later in the website, answwering the questin why i left the church
ReplyDeleteHi Stuart,
ReplyDeleteI've been slow (okay - VERY slow) to respond to your post above - partly because I figured there wasn't much I could say that wouldn't simply slot into the category of things you don't believe. That's not meant to sound dismissive, either - but there isn't much room for discussion on points where someone has definitely made up their mind (hope that's coming across the way I mean it!)& I wasn't really sure of the best way to answer you. Also partly because I just wanted to give it some thought myself.
I think there IS a real danger that Christians (especially charismaniacs like me ;P) can end up just having a bit of a delusional experience inside their own fantasy world. That said, I wouldn't just throw the "baby" of relationship with God out with that bathwater!
There are a couple of things that I think belie the idea that the whole "relationship experience" is simply inside people's heads - or at least call it into question.
I would think that something coming purely out of someone's "self" would tend to make them more "self-ish". In fact(& sadly), I think it is not hard to find examples of this happening. When your "relationship" with God is making everything go your way, justifying things like self-indulgence and self-absorption - perhaps enabling you to feel self-importrant, righteous and "superior" - well you have to ask if it is really God you've been talking to!! That's not displaying the image of God that I see in the Scriptures!
However I can also think of lots of examples (even a few in my own experience) where encountering God has transformed selfish, bitter, or even "religious" people into something quite different. It has caused people to give up their own interests and act in quite self-sacrificial ways (Mother T is a great & well known example of that - but I know of many every day "saints" who make little choices of that nature in relationships and life every day). When someone's encounter with God causes them to make hard choices that disadvantage themselves, but (unlike dysfunctional self-harming behaviours) bring peace, joy, healing & other evidences of God's Kingdom to earth - well, I think that is strong evidence that they have encountered something real- & it might actually BE God they're talking to.
The other thing is the story of Scripture itself, which paints a picture of a God who is not distant, and who wishes - even insists - on having an intimate, immediate and ongoing relationship with his people. In fact, I would go so far as to say Christianity is this, and this only; that we follow the living Christ - not just words in an old book. Take that living relationship away, and all you have is a religion - & "religion", as many have pointed out before me, seems to be the cause of half the world's problems!
A God who causes people to "lose their lives" for others & to really step out of their comfort zones in His service cannot be called "cosy" or "Santa Claus". As for "wish granting" - I can honestly say that my life is far more fulfilled following Jesus than I could ever have dreamed - and this in spite of the fact that many of my girlhood "wishes" and "dreams" have actually died in the process.
Anyway, for what it's worth (& if it isn't too late!) there are my thoughts.
By the way - I liked your comment on the "Pagan Christianity" post - couldn't have said it better myself!
Bye for now,
Kerry
Thank you Kerry, nicely thought out
ReplyDelete